Post navigation

Chasing the Dragon: Reworking My Take All Comers Lists

Like many of you, list writing is a never ending process for me. I hate playing the same list more then 3 or 4 times; it starts to feel stale. I am always looking for ways to improve my lists either competitively or just make them more entertaining to play. 7th edition (and the glorious new FAQs) has given me plenty of new ideas on how I should write a TAC list. It’s definitely no longer the same process I talked about before.

So, lets talk about the few big changes I see in how my lists operate. First and foremost, the dedicated anti-armor weapons. AP 1 and 2 are very valuable now in terms of getting that explodes results. My tau usually relied on missiles which are AP 4 to do the job. I can definitely see more fusion blasters and railguns in my lists in the near future, to see if they really do matter.

Skyfire, I am not sure what to think about this one. Now there is no way to get a skyfire weapon to shoot at ground targets effectively (besides skimmers), so they are very specific weapons now. Yet, they seem to be more valuable. If I can’t knock a flying monstrous creature out of the sky as easily, I feel like you need a weapon to hunt them accordingly. I may start throwing that back into a few lists to see how it does.

Psychic defense is an actual consideration. Not only does bringing a psycher in your army improve your deny the witch rolls, it also gets you more dice to do it with. I tested out my Iron Hands with a librarian against a 2 psychers tryanid list. Turns out that 90 point librarian was a great way to shut down a few powers. Now if I could only find a librarian model that is not covered in robs, ropes, and books.

Highly mobile units are a great advantage in maelstrom. Since everything scores now, some unit options are looking more appealing to me now. Don’t get me wrong, vespid are probably going to suck still, but I may give them another go to see if they can do me any good now.

Troops are the big thing everyone is talking about. The objective secured rule is huge. Personally, I am on the other end of the spectrum. I want to try a few lists with my tau with minimal troops. See if I can’t survive without them and just try to shoot things off objectives before I send in some mobile units to score. Now that being said, I still like running three tactical squads with my Iron Hands. I have absolutely no clue how I will run the Orks. Probably won’t matter that much, new models and codex are inbound for them anyway.

I still think a good list should have some solutions for lots of light infantry (especially with that malefic nonsense), elite infantry, heavy armor, and lots of light armor. The question is, how do you go about meeting those needs. No more joining an IC to a monstrous creature means no more buff commander attached to riptide. Flying monstrous creatures take a huge risk trying to assault now, and only have one smash attack. Challenges can’t hold up elite characters nor can a character hide in a challenge anymore. Open topped vehicles are suddenly very vulnerable to flamer templates. The consistency with getting psychic powers off seems worse, for the most part.

So, will we see a big change up in the popular net lists? I don’t know, or care that much really. I expect to see big changes in friendly lists though. I certainly know I will be playing my tau differently, and I would try out new stuff for the Iron Hands if I had the models. The orks are a big green question mark right now. What are you going to do different with your lists now?

I certainly think that striking scorpions and warp spiders may be making an appearance more often now. I’d also like to give wraith lists a few tries. For now it really does not seem like the new edition changes anything for how I write lists. 7th rewards balanced lists, which is something I always tried to do.

My first game playing Eldar I used the Seer council, on jetbikes. Being able to have 4 HQs really helps, as I can now add an autarch for some much needed AP 3 combat power, and a banshee mask!

With regards to the psychic phase, it’s really a mixed bag for Eldar. On the one hand, all warlocks now know two powers, you can still stack maledictions, warlocks peril much less (can single die powers till you get them), and you can almost generate enough warp charges to compensate for the increased casting difficulty. Ghost helms certainly come in handy too.

On the other hand, you can no longer stack blessings, so warlocks will never be more than Str 4, WS 5, +3 run etc…(granted, I’ve never really been able to stack these more than twice), and your opponent can now deny your blessings. This will matter more or less depending on the opponent, but I certainly expect fortune to be cast a lot less, which will have significant consequences.

The first, is that a seer council on foot will be even less viable. At least if a jet council is denied fortune it can fairly reliably get a 2+ armor and/or cover save. On foot, warlocks w/o fortune will be left with their 4+. This can be mitigated with the addition of Karandras! By infiltrating a council on foot, you may be able to counteract the senseless decision to not give them a dedicated transport (and he can tank wounds that you later heal).

However, as much as I love the seer council, it is still much too expensive for its tactical utility in my opinion. Perhaps now that you can cast witchfires at multiple targets and then shoot another in the shooting phase it might be better, but really I’ll be using it more for fluff reasons (Ulthwé player) than anything else. Just to give you an idea, in my game against Shorereaper my council cost exactly 1000pts! In this edition, that many points in a single unit is a terrible investment, but at least it is scoring now (and absurd in a relic game…).

All in all, I agreee that the number of viable lists available to most armies will increase enormously. I just happened to be lucky enough to have a really well written codex that already allowed for that flexibility. I am very happy that everyone can enjoy this freedom and not feel like they must quest for the “one true list” in order to stay competitive.